A DANGEROUS ROAD.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 488, 2 September 1915, Page 9

A DANGEROUS ROAD.

COMPLAINTS FROM MOTORISTS.

For some years past that portion! of the old South Belt betwen Lincoln Road and the southern extremity of the West Belt has been a no man's' road. At one time it was controlled by the old Selwyn County Council and the Riccarton Town Board, but, with the , progress of local government—the subdivision of the Selwyn County, and the blossoming of the Riccarton town district into a borough—it became an outcast. No local body wanted it, i for with Hagley Park on one side and a good deal of Government property on the Other, there was little [rateable property bordering upon it. Even when the South Belt was dignified with the more pretentious title of Moorhouse Avenue, the western portion of it, beyond the intersection of Lincoln Road, was refused this dignity—it remained under the name of South, Belt. j In its unhappy position as No Man's Road, the South Belt received no attention from any local body, ex- j cept that it formed a bone of conten- i tion. Year in and year out it was ' worn away steadily, and nothing was done to repair the ravages of time and traffic. At length" the squabble (between neighbouring local bodies as to who should maintain the roads surrounding and intersecting Hagley Park reached such a stage that a referee was called in, in the person of a commissioner, Mr S. W. S. Short, Assistant Under-secre-tary of Public Works. After holding an enquiry in Christchurch, Mr Short decided the question. He placed the South Belt under the control of the Riccarton Borough Council, and ordered that that body should pay two-thirds of cost of its upkeep, and the Waimairi County Council should pay the other third. And now the Riccarton Borough Council is taking steps to put the road into what it calls proper order. The road is certainly in very bad order. Indeed, its condition is dangerous to traffic, and especially to the motor car traffic, which is very large on Wednesdays, when stock sales are held at the Addington Yards.

As a result of complaints being made bj» drivers of motor cars, a Sun representative inspected the road yesterday afternoon. He found that it is scarcely a road, but rather a succesion of hollows and holes, some of them quite deep. Travelling over them is reminiscent of the "corduroy" roads of the .back-blocks of Australia. The car simply jolted out of one hole into another, and sent a spray of water and mud across the road, the holes being filled with water after the rain of the previous night. The worst portion of the road is that at the Lincoln Road end, and the corner is dangerous, because a car driven round the corner in the South! Belt might easily have an axle ■ broken by the heavy jolting, causing j a serious accident. It is especially j dangerous in wet weather, partly j because the water hides the depth of the holes, and partly because the' water lying in the holes makes the J road very slippery. Further along,! by the saleyards", where the road has J a "crown," its condition is not quite so bad. Now that the Riccarton Borough Council has undertaken to put the road in order, the motor car drivers are not quite so anxious about it as they were. The point they emphasise is that mere tinkering with the road will not serve any good purpose. The road has been left for so long that it needs something more. P needs to he practically remade, j